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The goofy beauty and complete chaos of playing Borderlands 4 co-op
A
Alyssa Mercante
Gearbox’s latest game in the looter shooter franchise doesn’t just allow for four-player online co-op (and couch co-op if you’re on console), it was built with this approach in mind. Its crossplay support means I can jump on from my PC in the office while my boyfriend is logged onto the Xbox in the living room. And thanks to dynamic level scaling, our friends across town can hop in and play with us whenever they’re free, and it doesn’t matter if we’re all wildly different levels with a variety of gear.
Before Borderlands 4 even came out, I staked my claim on necromancer Vex, as I always prefer to play badass sirens in these games. This worked out quite well for us, as my boyfriend prefers a “glass cannon” build (maximizing damage output while sacrificing health and armor), and Exo-Soldier Rafa is a perfect fit for that kind of approach. The two work well together: Vex can summon spectral shooters and place them on elevated areas or in choke points to help take the heat off, or give me some breathing room to duck out of a fight to heal or revive my downed teammates. Rafa’s special ability essentially gives him an aimbot for a few seconds, so we can mow through large groups of enemies easily. It’s a great duo to take on the bad guys of Kairos, and we easily slot into a four-person team as well—it’s so much fun playing with others, in fact, that I haven’t played a second of Borderlands 4 alone.
Co-op chaos
Though Gearbox clearly went to great lengths to ensure Borderlands 4 co-op is relatively frictionless and easy to enjoy no matter what platform you and your friends are on, it’s the absurd moments and hilarious hijinks that really make it so enjoyable. For the first time in the franchise, you can fast-travel to your teammates no matter where they are in Kairos. While this is a great quality-of-life upgrade for players, it also makes for some truly hysterical moments.
At one point, frustrated by my lack of progress in a particularly lethal side mission, I decided to join my boyfriend, who was leagues away trying to track down potential rock stars to force them to join a new metal band (long story). I fast-traveled to him, but arrived right as he was in the middle of clearing a massive jump on his digirunner (Borderlands 4’s summonable hoverbike), and panicked as I almost plummeted off the side of a cliff.
“Dude, oh my God!” I yelled as I quickly double-jumped and used my jetpack to float to safety. I could hear him cackling in the other room (and on my microphone) as he sped away.
Fast travel moments like this happen at least once a session: One of us innocently asks the other to join them somewhere across the map, only to summon them into the middle of a massive firefight or the edge of a cliff, or one of us is overwhelmed by enemies and begs the other to hurry up and save them.
A familiar refrain of “Where the hell are you?” rings out while we play. Since we’re usually so spread out across the map, it’s fascinating to see what the other person has been toiling away at (and where) while you were doing your own thing. It also provides some interesting insight into the different kinds of Borderlands players there are. Whereas you can likely find me doing fetch quests, my boyfriend is often platforming to hard-to-reach collectibles.
Formidable foes
Some of the best recurring co-op fast travel moments happen whenever we stumble upon a world boss and excitedly tell the other person to “get here, quick, it's bubble.”
In Borderlands 4, world bosses appear randomly across the map. You’ll know one is coming when you see a semi-transparent dome pop up in the middle of an open field or above a small outcropping of buildings. Once you enter that bubble, the world boss will spawn in. If you leave that bubble, they’ll despawn—which we learned the hard way after I was accidentally booped out of the dome by a particularly vicious enemy.
World bosses are a great way to farm loot, so we’ll always drop whatever else we’re doing to go “get bubble.” Fast-traveling to the other person to help “get bubble” just makes the experience more fun, even if one of us accidentally despawns the boss.
Co-op play also makes some aspects of Borderlands 4 less tedious. Some particularly finicky side missions require you to carry an item either across a large distance or up a very tall structure—and you can’t fast travel or climb a ladder with it in your hand. Doing these missions solo would require you to repeatedly throw and pick up the item as you slowly make your way to your destination, but with a squadmate, you can toss the items to each other to speed up the process. And since Borderlands 4 allows you to snatch items with your grappling hook, you can lob a canister up the side of a structure without worrying if your aim is all that good. It’s a fun way to streamline the process.
All in all, Borderlands 4 is made for co-op, and since you can easily enjoy it across platforms (and even side-by-side on your couch), there’s no reason you shouldn’t at least give it a try. If you’re looking for laughs or just some support with a particularly annoying world boss, try inviting a friend along for the Kairos chaos.
Borderlands 4 is available on Epic Games Store.